Direct 2 Drive Pre-Load Option Now Available

[Alsark]

For those of you who have pre-ordered Civilization V from Direct 2 Drive, you may now pre-load it onto your computer, like those who have pre-ordered it from Steam. This is regardless of your country. D2D will supply you with an activation key which you may put into your Steam client and begin the download process from there. The download takes about 40 minutes on a 54 Mbps connection (obviously this will be variable depending on server load and other factors).

The game opens for playability on 10:00 AM on the 21st. The Civilization III: Complete download, however, may be downloaded and played immediately.

 

[Kruelgor]

I always liked D2D. I've bought a few games from them.

 

[homan1983]

How does this work? Have they sent the codes out? Because I've been holding out on making the purchase purely for this reason.

I sent an email to D2D about it but I've had no response.

Does this mean I now have the go-ahead to make the purchase now?

 

[ZimbuTheMonkey]

1. Go to www.direct2drive.com and login
2. Go to the section called "My games"
3. Click "Download" or "Send info" (the latter emails it to you) on the Civilization V entry
4. Copy the key (it'll be highlighted and hard to miss)
5. Open up Steam, click on "Games" and then "Activate a product on Steam..."
6. Preload the game and enjoy

http://imgur.com/xCg63.jpg

 

[Alsark]

How does this work? Have they sent the codes out? Because I've been holding out on making the purchase purely for this reason.

I sent an email to D2D about it but I've had no response.

Does this mean I now have the go-ahead to make the purchase now?

Yep - I have my activation key now (from D2D).

 

[homan1983]

Ok thank you.

Anyone ordered the UK version and been sent the activation code by any chance?

 

[CTH]

Anyone knows if the UK version works in all of europe? It is much cheaper from the UK site compared to the Euro site (for swedes at least...)

 

[Weird_ed]

Works for me! (norway)

 

[CTH]

Works for me! (norway)

You bought from the UK site?

 

[Weird_ed]

Yes. Bought from the UK site, got the activation key and downloading now.

 

[Venereus]

It's about time.

 

[homan1983]

Yes. Bought from the UK site, got the activation key and downloading now.

Woah wait a sec... does this mean if I bought from the US version I get to play from the 21st?

 

[Zhahz]

I've bought several games via D2D and always had good experiences.

Yep - I have my activation key now (from D2D).

Same. Thanks for the heads up. Preloading now. Oh my...

Just when I thought I couldn't be any more excited over Civ 5. I may spontaneously combust.

Note that there are some steps missing from D2D's instructions. When you do what they say you get a popup saying the game is locked. You have to navigate to find the civ screen with the preload button to actually get the preload to start. I found the navigation to be a little wierd as someone who doesn't use Steam (or haven't in years). For me, I had to go to the 'view' menu, select downloads, then under the title at the top of the screen pick 'games'. Wierd. I couldn't find a direct menu item that got me where I wanted to be, but may have never picked the right item. YMMV. Also, I'd installed Steam a while ago and I configged it to do very little, so it needed to update itself when I got into it, and maybe that's why the preload didn't just automatically kick in. /shrug

 

[Alsark]

Woah wait a sec... does this mean if I bought from the US version I get to play from the 21st?

I'm sure that there would be some kind of regional coding or detection of some sort that would prevent that, though I could be wrong. At the very least then likely, if you tried to play online, it would automatically connect you to the U.S. servers (if server selection is not an option - I have no experience with Steam).

 

[Weird_ed]

I'm pretty sure it's your steam region which counts, not which store you bough it from. But please activate it and let us know what the countdown says!

 

[homan1983]

Errrr.. I'd rather not risk it I guess the £££ version it is.

I wouldn't have minded creating a US steam account and US code but unfortunately I already have a steam account.

 

[mantis2007]

Thanks for this fantastic news.

I'm on DSL, getting about 200 kb/s. Preload should take about an hour and a half or so.

 

[Stutz788]

I'm pretty sure it's your steam region which counts, not which store you bough it from. But please activate it and let us know what the countdown says!

I'm in the UK and the countdown still says the 24th.

 

[Doskias51]

Got my activation key but it is telling me there is no servers to provide the content. It wont let me pre-load it.

 

[homan1983]

Ok I just got the D2D with UK purchase and its in the steam account now which makes me quite happy

I can start preloading it but I guess I'll wait till midnight or so.